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“It’s packed away in the boxes, ready to be shipped to you.”

“Can you find it?”

He heaved a sigh. “Yes. It’ll take a little while.”

“Please, as soon as you can.”

He must have finally heard the urgency in her voice. “I’ll go down now.”

“And can you send a list of the other items in the drawer with it?”

“I have it here on my computer. There were some staples. Two printer cartridges. A ruler, an agenda, some birthday cards, a box of paper clips, and that picture. I’ll forward you the list.”

“Merci. When you find the box, can you also scan those cards?”

She hung up and stared ahead.

“You don’t believe Paul Robinson killed his daughter,” said Armand.

“I do.”

“The truth, Jean-Guy.”

“I think Paul Robinson killed his daughter. He regretted it, and he tried to justify it, but yes, I think he did it.”

“Think. You think that. But what do you feel? What do you believe, in here.”

Gamache tapped Beauvoir’s chest. The gesture, the insistence, infuriated Jean-Guy. He hated it, hated it, when Gamache pushed him like that. Not physically, but pushed him to consider feelings. Beliefs. Emotions. When Gamache insisted that they could possibly be as important as thoughts. As facts.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir had strong feelings about feelings, and Gamache knew it. But insisted anyway.

“All right. You want to know what I feel? This’s what I came to show you.”

He pulled out his phone, tapped, and shoved it into Gamache’s face, almost hitting him.

It was the image of Paul Robinson that Jean-Guy had found when he’d googled the man. Robinson was at a conference, standing in front of a poster showing a bunch of graphs. He was smiling, in an exaggerated, silly sort of way.

“Look at the banner behind him,” demanded Jean-Guy. “This’s the week before, maybe days before, Maria died. That’s not the face of a father in such despair he’s considering killing his youngest daughter.”

Gamache took the phone and examined the picture. Then handed it back.

“This proves nothing, Jean-Guy. Like you said, if Paul Robinson smothered Maria, it was in a moment of madness. A psychotic break.”

“You’re right,” said Beauvoir. “That’s what I think too. But you asked me what I feel. And I feel that man did not go home and put a pillow over his daughter’s face.”

Armand stared at his second-in-command. His son-in-law.

“Then who did?”

Isabelle Lacoste was at her desk going over the latest forensic reports when a text came in from Beauvoir asking her to meet them in the bistro.

She found the Chief and Beauvoir in a private corner. Heads together, deep in discussion. Perhaps about the case. More likely, she thought, about what to order.

“Are you here to see me, ma belle?” Olivier asked, kissing her on both cheeks.

Try as he might, every time Olivier saw Isabelle, he first saw her lying on the floor of their bistro. Bleeding. Dying. As shots exploded all around them.

Now, when she walked into the bistro, it felt like a resurrection.